While I encourage readers to review the entire article and following comments, let me share some of Spencer’s salient points. “I have argued before that I don’t think it actually exists, since the “missing heat” argument assumes that feedbacks in the climate system are positive and that radiative energy is accumulating in the system faster than surface warming would seem to support. ... But I remain unconvinced by arguments that depend upon global deep ocean temperature changes being measured to an accuracy of hundredths or even thousandths of a degree. ... Plots of changes in ocean heat content since the 1950s might look dramatic with an accumulation of gazillions of Joules, but the energy involved is only 1 part in 1,000 of the average energy flows in and out of the climate system. To believe this tiny energy imbalance is entirely manmade, and has never happened before, requires too much faith for even me to muster.”

Others such as Arno Arrak are less charitable, stating, “I would have sent them back to checking the floats and learning how they operate and told them to do their homework before rushing into print with half-baked claims.”

In summary, the Trenberth article is, at best, a highly questionable rebuttal to the fact that global temperatures have been virtually unchanged over the past 15 years.